When Paul George suffered a fractured leg at USA Basketball’s showcase in Las Vegas, it not only ended his 2015 season with the Pacers, but it turned Indiana from a top-tier team in the East into one that will probably finish outside of the playoff picture.

The league has remedies for teams in these situations, in the form of a disabled player exception that allows them to add a replacement to the roster.

BREAKING: Pacers have just received a disabled player exception from the NBA. They’ll have roughly $2 million to spend on another player.

The Pacers would actually have $5.3 million to spend on a player they signed to a one-year deal, or $5.4 million on one they traded for or claimed off of waivers who was in the final year of his contract. But that approximate $2 million figure is thrown out because spending any more than that would put Indiana into luxury tax territory, something Pacers president Larry Bird has said repeatedly that ownership is not going to approve.

That’s a big reason the Pacers pursuing Shawn Marion seemed a bit silly. Not only would Marion not want to join a team that might struggle to make the playoffs at this stage in his career, but he could command more money than Indiana is willing to spend.

The Pacers may add someone, but don’t expect much in the way of realistic help for what’s sure to be a bargain basement price.

In fact, in Saturday’s dunk contest, he didn’t look like a dunker at all.

The Pacers star missed all three attempts of his first dunk, and a Black Panther mask was by far the biggest draw of his second. Oladipo was eliminated after the first round.

Maybe Dennis Smith Jr. wasn’t the only eliminated dunker who left something in his bag. This Oladipo dunk – 180 degrees, throwing ball off the backboard with his left hand while in mid-air, dunking with his right hand – while preparing in Los Angeles was awesome.

A statement released Wednesday by the NFL and NBA clubs says their 90-year-old owner is resting comfortably at Ochsner Medical Center, a hospital which also serves as a major sponsor and which owns naming rights to the teams’ training headquarters.

Benson has owned the New Orleans Saints since 1985 and bought the New Orleans Pelicans in 2012.

In recent years, Benson has overhauled his estate plan so that his third wife, Gayle, would be first in line to inherit control of the two major professional franchises.

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said he’d be surprised if Kawhi Leonard played again this season, a stark reversal from just a month ago. Back then, even while announcing Leonard was out indefinitely with a quad injury, the San Antonio coach said Leonard wouldn’t miss the rest of the season.

After spending 10 days before the All-Star break in New York consulting with a specialist to gather a second opinion on his right quad injury, All-NBA forward Kawhi Leonard bears the burden of determining when he’s prepared to play again, sources told ESPN.

Leonard has been medically cleared to return from the right quad tendinopathy injury, but since shutting down a nine-game return to the Spurs that ended Jan. 13, he has elected against returning to the active roster, sources said.

The uncertainty surrounding this season — and Leonard’s future which could include free agency in the summer of 2019 — has inspired a palpable stress around the organization, league sources said.

At first glance, this sounds like Derrick Rose five years ago. Even after he was cleared to play following a torn ACL, the then-Bulls star remained mysterious about when he’d suit up. His confidence in his physical abilities seemed to be a major issue, and he was never the same player since (suffering more leg injuries).

But the Spurs famously favor resting players to preserve long-term health. They seem unlikely to rush back Leonard. They might even sit players who want to play more often. And Leonard isn’t Rose.

Still, it’s clear something is amiss in San Antonio. Maybe not amiss enough to end Leonard’s tenure there, but the longer this lingers, the more time for tension to percolate.